October 27, 2006 on 12:37 am | In Anime Scene | Comments Off on I don’t hate anime

I’ve been consumed by a lack of motivation in the face of anime the last six weeks or so. Apart from the Nana clip episode, I can’t remember if I’ve watched anything since I want to return to that day.

Working hard on pretending to be ready for my Japanese speaking test tomorrow (including the memorable line “I’m so glad that the Cold War has ended. Russia, banzai!”), I had the opportunity to steal my speaking partner’s library of music.

The folder was filled with a plethora of obscure songs from obscure titles, and before long I was rocking out to “Horizon”, the ED of Argento Soma:

Music has the power to send you back. I was instantly transported to those fine days when I was provided with one of my few true moments of anime shock and elation.

Heck, as I sit here avoiding work, I’m listening to the first ED of Suzuka. A lot of the time, music can be better than the show it supports. Suzuka had the makings of greatness but it ended up with the endings of suckness.
Even as I sit here, I’m drawn towards Sakura Diaries once more. That’s effed up romance done right.

The big watershed moment for me was listening to Hayashibara Megumi’s excellent ED for Abenobashi. That’s a case of double nostalgia right there.

All I need to say is this: I don’t hate anime, and I’m looking forward to reliving my glory days with the DVDs. Those days when things were that much simpler.

I’m not ready yet; don’t expect me to check back in for proper until mid November at the earliest. I might let you know that I’m still alive from time to time, and I’ll probably keep updating my other half in the meantime.

The new Giant Robo is being actively promoted for English markets by its production company in the form of this site.

Now, looking at that site, I’m finding myself asking “what have I done to you, Softgarage?” If you look at those character designs, it’s clear that they’ve revised the Giant Robo aesthetic. Giant Robo is not something that you can modernise. The whole point of watching it is so that you can feel like you’re watching anime of the sixties and seventies with a high level nineties budget, so expensive that years upon years are taken to animate the whole damned thing.

On top of this, they’ve revised the Giant Robo “mythology”, in that it didn’t used to have a mythology. The point of the previous Giant Robo was the morality of the technology that had been utilised in creating Giant Robo; the inherent danger of the very utility of the robot versus the danger of not using him and having Big Fire win. If these are mystical “god robots” discovered by people in various parts of the world, I don’t know what to make of that.

Of course, I shouldn’t say that something should slavishly conform to that which inspired it, but I sure would like it that way. With only one character that I recognise, Giant Robo might be interesting, but it won’t be what I loved.

Plus that site needs some editing. I mean, it has a “plomotion plan”.

… and I shouldn’t complain about “authenticity” if you consider that Giant Robo of the nineties was a huge mélange of Yokoyama’s entire career.